


Family matters

by Kitty87



Category: Joel Edgerton - Fandom, Tom Hardy - Fandom, Warrior (2011)
Genre: F/M, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, Implied/Referenced Sexual Harassment
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-31
Updated: 2016-01-31
Packaged: 2018-05-17 10:26:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,905
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5865859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kitty87/pseuds/Kitty87
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tommy and Katie are close friends. Together with their mate Joel they have to deal with the on-goings of Katie’s dysfunctional family and come to terms with the events of a fatal night.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Family matters

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first story to make public, so I’m eager for your feedback. I know its clichéd and corny, probably overly dramatic and what not, but please be gentle.

“I killed her! I think I killed her!” Tommy’s phone has been ringing constantly for almost two hours and this was what a young man shouted at him hysterically and probably drunk when he finally came around to answer. “You what? … Who is this?” Tommy was confused; almost annoyed that someone spoiled an otherwise relaxed day.

He and his mate Joel worked as trainers in a gym in Salford. The gym was especially popular with the actors, dancers and stuntmen working in the many theatres of Greater Manchester. For the last couple of weeks Tommy and Joel had been assigned to and spend most of their time with two actors, James and Jack. Not to get them into shape (they were very well build already), but rather to prepare them for the stunts they were going to have to endure in their upcoming play. James and Jack, as well as the stuntmen of the show, worked hard and did very well, so all the boys with their trainers went out for a treat, in the form of greasy pizza, plus dessert and staying up past 10 pm. Tommy was very pleased with what they had accomplished and generally enjoyed the company he was in so that he didn’t feel like answering the calls from an unknown number all evening.

But now they had left the restaurant and Tommy was listening to the drunken man panting, then saying breathlessly “Toby. It’s Toby”. And all of a sudden Tommy’s heart started beating heavily, he stopped and fell behind the group of cheerful young men he had been part of until a few seconds ago. “What did you do? What happened?” he tried his best to sound calm, thinking this would get him the most information out of the disturbed young man, when in reality his mind was racing.

Tommy knew Toby for the greater part of his 25 years. They were neighbours, schoolmates, team members, but never friends. Toby had always been troubled– his mother had left to live with another man somewhere in Southern Europe when he was six and his father did his best to bring him up right. But Toby always felt disadvantaged and had an unpredictable temper. Tommy had seen his mood change from jolly light-heartedness to savage brutality within a blink of an eye several times, so he preferred to avoid Toby at all costs.

Keeping his distance, however, proved to be difficult when Toby’s father re-married ten years ago and his step-sister and Tommy became close friends. At first glance, Tommy and Katie couldn’t be more different: Tommy was clever but not in a formal setting, at school his grades were average at best, and even this only because he was an excellent athlete who was the school’s pride and joy; Katie on the other side had her nose always stuck in a book and learning came easy to her, but while she was shy and withdrawn, he was open and confident. Still they connected and spent much time together, which drove Toby up the wall.

“Toby!” Tommy hissed, “Where is she?” he gradually lost his cool the longer he heard Toby breathing down the phone and not giving him any information. “Look, it’s her fault, really. That little bitch didn’t want to get with me.” Toby suddenly sounded matter-of-factly as he made himself believe beating and kicking a girl who refused his approaches was the only possible response. “If she only accepted who she belongs to. Me! No-one else. But you know where she was headed for? You. Of course, it’s always been you. Big, buff Tommy, with the muscles and the tattoos, and now even money and connections to those pretty boys from the city” Tommy listened, clenching his jaw as Toby was talking himself into a frenzy. “You took away the only good thing that happened to me! But not even really, aye? Always so close, spending so much time together, but never shagging. How does it not drive you mad?” his voice changing from shouts to whispers. “Doesn’t it make you go berserk when she parades around those big tits? God, being such a goody two-shoes all the time she’s probably a crazy bitch in bed. Just imagine the sounds she’d make. But nah, you’re too nice to fuck her, too good to make that slag your own, aren’t ya?” And with this Tommy snapped. His anger erupted in a loud bang when his fist slammed against a telephone box and he pressed a “You sick bastard, where is she?” through his teeth.

“Down by the river, near The Meadow” Tommy hung up as he didn’t need to hear more. He knew exactly which way she took from her work at the gallery to the gym, when she came around for lunch or to watch them train. He also remembered the many times he had asked her not to take the little detour through the patch of green they called The Meadow after dark and the frustration when she did it anyway laughing of the possibility that something bad could ever happen.

Tommy only now realised that Joel was standing next to him, with contracted eyebrows he alternated his look between Tommy’s face, the phone in his hand and the dent in the telephone booth. But he had gathered enough from the conversation already to suspect what had happened. Joel also knew Toby and his family for years, as they all grew up in the same neighbourhood around Clarendon Park. They had had a few run-ins after too many pints at the pub when they were younger. Along the years, however, Joel lost interest in feuds over rugby teams or girls, and rather put all his energy into his work, as well as the people he cared about; Toby, at the other hand, never grew out of getting into meaningless discussions leading to vicious fist-fights. In Joel’s eyes Toby was a loser, with the odd job here and there keeping him afloat. And he took a weird pride in it all as well. But what bugged Joel the most was Toby’s strange fixation on his younger step-sister, the fact that he somehow grew up to believe she was his property, someone he and his mates could order around and make sexual advances to. Joel had witnessed this abuse reduce Katie to tears or fill her with anxiety to the extent that she would refuse to go home for days. When she finally moved out in her last year of university he and Tommy were relieved, and her behaviour and mind-set changed notable, in that she opened up a little, laughed more and generally seemed more happy.

But all this was subsidiary now that Tommy and Joel battled their way through the traffic of Manchester on a Friday night. As Joel manoeuvred his black 1995 BMW through the city packed with people coming from dinner dates, going to clubs or changing pubs, he could see Tommy out of the corner of his eye. He shifted nervously in the passenger seat, gripping his phone tightly, hood up his face looked crude and tense, and his eyes forlorn as he frantically dialled Katie’s number again and again – unsuccessfully. After they crossed Irwell Bridge and turned into Chapel Street they could see emergency lights flashing in front of the pub they knew all too well, since it was the one closest to the gym and especially Joel liked his nightcap after work. He felt comforted at the thought of Katie already having been found, but also panicky at the number of cars parked at the lot – but he didn’t say any of that. Instead he slowed down when they drove past the pub parking lot, trying to get a glimpse of the scene, but all they could make out were flashing lights and police men swarming about.

“Try again” he suggested to Tommy. The dial tone echoed through the car – once, twice, three times and finally: “Salford Royal, nurse Nadia. Can I help you?” The young men simultaneously sighted in relief. Tommy cleared his throat “Can I talk to Katie, please.” “I’m sorry sir, she’s still in treatment” the woman on the other end said. “Treatment? How is she?” Tommy asked almost excited. Joel threw his head against the head rest of his seat and breathed out audibly as he relaxed a little. “I’m only aloud to give this kind of information to her next of kin, sir” the nurse explained. “I’m … erm, I’m her brother” he lied. “Can you confirm this?”, “How? … How is that – “, she cut him off with “When’s your sister’s birthday?” He rolled his eyes at Joel when he told the nurse Katie’s date of birth. And so nurse Nadia finally told him that she had a lot of luck as there were only external wounds and she was being treated for cuts and bruises at the moment, and further that they would discharge her later that night given a family member picked her up. Joel had already steered the car in the direction of the hospital when Tommy got off the phone and a few minutes later he ran up the stairs of A&E.

At the same time Katie sat in the surgery being treated by two nurses and another doctor scuttling around her. She only had her underwear and a thin vest on, but this wasn’t the reason she was shaking uncontrollably. She looked down on her body and seeing the bruises that had formed the events of the evening flashed before her eyes: The marks on her wrists came from Toby trying to pin her to the ground, those on her collarbone from his effort to keep her from moving be leaning his weight on her chest and the bruises on her upper thighs came from him wanting to push her legs apart.

She had suddenly felt a hand on her shoulder, then heard Toby’s voice cooing “Hiya dove” as she was walking through the wooded area of The Meadow towards the pedestrian bridge leading to the pub. Katie fake laughed about his inappropriate jokes in an attempt to keep him good spirited, but it was all in vain. One word let to another and all of a sudden he was shaking her violently, shouting slurs at her. In an effort to escape his grip she stumbled to the ground and he used this to threw himself on top of her. She fought and tried to wiggle free from underneath him, but he was heavy and the growing rage seemed to fuel his strength. They must have struggled minutes in the dirt before he completely lost his temper, all the while Katie sobbed begging him to let go of her. But Toby didn’t even seem to recognize her desperate pleads over the sound of his own voice threatening what he would do to her once he got her clothes off. And then, as he ripped violently at her coat once again and smashed her upper body onto the ground harder yet, Katie felt a sharp pain in her head, her vision blurred and a shrill noise ran through her ears, before she blacked out.

The nurses gave Katie one of those hospital dresses to cover up when a police woman came in to talk to her. She felt naked regardless, especially when thinking about the photos of her body they had taken just minutes before to perpetuate evidence. The woman was very kind and spoke softly to Katie, forming every question very carefully. But she lied anyway. Already when Katie woke in the brightly lit ambulance snippets of memory came back to her, and already there and then she decided to keep them for herself. She knew very well how stupid this was, but she couldn’t bring herself to tell the truth: that she always knew it was just a matter of time before Toby would lose his temper with her after years of rejection; that he felt like the world owed him something for having to live with the knowledge that his mother left him so easily, and that when the world never payed he turned to taking his frustration out on the people around him, especially her; and lastly that he had instilled a crippling fear in her, so that she would rather lie to the police, than admit that her step-brother had viciously attacked her. She kept her answers to the officer’s questions as close to the truth as possible and as vague as necessary.

She tried to stay calm, but she could feel Toby towering over her again, saw his fury-filled eyes, even smelt his presence. Closing her eyes and taking deep breaths she felt panic taking over her senses, when her lungs didn’t seem to fill with air she started panting violently. “It’s okay, dear. We’re done for now” the woman cooed and nurse Nadia was the one leading Katie from the surgery into the hallway where she was supposed to wait for a final check up by a doctor. Katie still hadn’t recovered from the panic attack, and it felt as if her heart stopped beating for a few seconds when Nadia said “You’ll have to wait here for a few more moments, love, but your brother is here to keep you company.” Katie’s eyes widened in shock and terror made her stomach turn.

Outside Tommy had leaned into the passenger window of Joel’s car to tell him to go home. As Katie was still being treated and had to see an officer, as well it could take hours before he could see her and eventually take her home. Even though Joel would rather stay with his mate, he did as he was told; knowing this was not the time to arguing with Tommy. “So what’s the plan now?” he finally asked. Tommy knew exactly what he was implying and replied insistently “The plan is, that you go home and sleep, and we see each other in the morning. Yeah?” “Yeah, alright.” Joel was disappointed, because he would have been up for it. He would have been up for finding Toby and giving him a taste of his own medicine. And that’s what it would have been: an unequal fight, just like he picked with Katie. And as chance would have it, on the way to his flat Joel drove past a figure staggering, trying to steady his walk on the houses lining the street. He recognised the stature immediately as Toby’s and it took all his strength not to jump out of the car and get physical. Toby was a strong guy, he trained regularly, but he also got wasted regularly, the booze softening his muscles and messing with his accuracy. But even without the drunkenness he had nothing on Joel, who was in perfect shape, a fighter having absolute control over his body. He knew Tommy was right not to get into trouble and risk what they had worked for so hard for that brief moment satisfaction, but no-one could deny Joel the simple pleasure of a good old-fashioned threat. He slowed down, opened the car window and in his deep, raspy voice shouted “Oi!” Toby jumped, “You disgusting son of a bitch, if you ever lay so much as a figure on Katie again I’m gonna find you and I’m gonna break every bone in your body and make you listen to every single crack. ‘Til. The. Last. One.” Joel was pretty happy with his promise; he knew Toby was drunk and paranoid out of his mind; the thought of Joel being after him would keep him up and running for days. At home Joel, nevertheless, had to calm his nerves with a glass of Whiskey and take out the night’s anger on a punching bag. He worried about Katie’s health, but thoughts about Tommy’s well-being dominated his mind.

Joel couldn’t remember a time when Tommy wasn’t in his life. Their mothers were close friends, so they grew up to be like brothers, rather than just mates. As children they were partners in crime, as teens they were teammates, as adults they were colleagues. Nothing could come between them - not money, not success, not girls. And Tommy’s close friendship to Katie was never a threat. He knew that it was Tommy’s highest priority to make sure Katie was safe. From the moment they met she brought out an almost feral protective instinct in him. He would sit at bars in clubs for hours on end when she was out dancing, wait in front of the gallery until the middle of the night when she had to work late, drive ridiculous miles to take her places, all just to watch over her. Joel knew Tommy would feel as if he had failed her after tonight.

The relief was almost unbearable when Katie realised it was Tommy who entered the narrow, glaringly lit hallway. When he finally looked up and she saw his face an audible gasped escaped her lips and she could feel her legs giving way. But before she could even begin to fall he was beside her and she drop against his muscular chest. Clutching tightly to the fabric of his jumper emotions flooded her mind and she started crying. “Sshh, sshh” Tommy slowly stroked down her back and his soft voice rang through her ears “It’s alright. I’m here. I’m here now.”


End file.
